


By The Books

by my_mad_fatuation



Category: My Mad Fat Diary
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, LGBTQ Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-30
Updated: 2017-10-30
Packaged: 2019-01-26 19:33:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12564612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/my_mad_fatuation/pseuds/my_mad_fatuation
Summary: Rae knows Finn peripherally through the GSA at school, but after getting to know him better, he's nothing like she expected.





	By The Books

Rae didn’t have any friends.

Well, that wasn’t entirely true; she didn’t have any friends at school. She had plenty of friends online. And she was _friendly_ with some people at school, but not close enough that she could have lunch with any of them.

So, instead of sitting by herself during lunch break every day, she joined a bunch of groups that met at lunchtime.

Monday was the Arts Council, which met to organize events that promoted art at the school, including art shows, talent shows, and open mic nights.

Tuesday was the Choir, which met to rehearse for performances at school and competitions across the region.

Wednesday was the Chess Club, although Rae was not very good at chess and always had her ass handed to her.

Thursday was the Mental Health Awareness Team, which met to organize school events that raised awareness of mental health issues among adolescents.

And Friday was the Gay/Straight Alliance, which met to discuss ways of combatting intolerance around the school.

She had to admit, the GSA was her favourite meeting to attend, mostly because it was Friday and the majority of people had already checked out and just wanted to goof around instead of getting any work done. (But there were a couple of keeners in the group who ensured that they got _something_ done once in a while.)

Rae didn’t worry about people at school speculating on the reason for her involvement in this club, though; she was already out, pretty much. Or, rather, she’d been outed by a friend. A former friend, now.

“So, rumour ‘round here is that you’re bi,” one random guy in her class told her shortly after she’d confided that to her friend. She wasn’t sure this guy had ever spoken to her before.

“Where’d you hear that?” she replied.

“It’s just going around,” he said. “Is it true?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“I think it’s pretty cool, actually.”

“Thanks,” she said, and rolled her eyes.

“So does that mean you’d have a threesome?” he added, snickering.

She made a sound of disgust and ignored him for the rest of class. This, she figured, was something she would have to get used to.

Not everyone’s responses to her sexual orientation were as crass as that, but most were still pretty ignorant. Her personal favourite was, “Does that mean you have twice as many people you can sleep with?”

_Well, yeah,_ she thought. _Because two times zero is still zero._

***

Despite her involvement in so many extra-curricular activities, Rae still did not have any people at school she would consider to be her _friends_. Sure, she talked to people from the various groups sometimes, but never outside of the school walls. (Unless she was on a field trip to a choral competition with the rest of the Choir.) (Even then, she’d usually just keep to herself.)

So she was hesitant when someone at the GSA suggested that they all go on a group excursion after school to the new queer resource library that had just opened in the town centre a few weeks ago.

Rae didn’t know if she wanted to go along, though. She was interested in the library itself, and would probably make a point of going there at some point, but having to socialize with people outside of school made her nervous.

“You coming, Rae?” said Archie, a boy in her last class of the day who was also part of the GSA.

“You mean to the library thing?” she asked as she packed up her books. “I don’t think so…”

“You have to come,” he pleaded. “We’ve gotta support places like this if we want them to stay open.”

“I know, but—”

“Do you have something better to do?”

“Not really…”

He smiled and hooked his arm around hers. “Great, then you’re coming.”

Rae was barely able to swing her bag onto her shoulder before she was being whisked away.

She felt a little strange walking down the hallway on the arm of a cute boy, though it wasn’t as if anyone would suspect they were together. Just as everyone at school knew she was bi, they also all knew that Archie was gay. And, as far as Rae could tell, he had a boyfriend.

“Finley!” he called out as they made their way to the front of the school.

A boy down the hall, Finn, whom Rae vaguely knew from GSA as well, looked over at the two of them.

“Get your ass over here,” Archie added.

Finn smiled and jogged over to them. “What’s going on here, then?” he asked, hooking his arm with Archie’s spare and falling into step with him and Rae. “Should I be jealous?”

“We’re going to the gay library, and yes, you should be jealous. Right, Rae?” said Archie, tugging Rae’s arm to get her attention.

“Er, what?” she said.

“I’m saying Finn should be jealous since you and are in love, right?” He winked at her.

“Oh, yes. Right,” she said, and hoped she wasn’t blushing too profusely.

They walked towards the town centre with some other folks from the GSA, though Rae unlinked her arm from Archie’s fairly soon.

“Well, that was my shortest ever relationship,” he said jokingly.

“And my longest one,” she replied, which made both him and Finn laugh. She just hoped they were laughing with her and not at her.

***

When they got to the queer resource library, Rae was a little surprised at how small it was. Then again, it was a volunteer-run and donation-based organization, so she wasn’t sure what she was expecting.

That being said, it was packed with queer-positive books and zines and pamphlets and posters everywhere she looked. It made her happy to see all of this in one place; it made her feel _normal_ for once.

“Have you read that one?”

She looked up from the book she was examining when Finn approached and started talking to her. “Oh, er, no, I haven’t,” she said. “I just like other stuff by the author.”

He nodded like that answer impressed him. “You’ll like this one.”

“Maybe I’ll check it out, then,” she replied, tapping the book against her palm.

“Good idea.”

She took the book up to a desk near the front of the library where one of the volunteers was sitting at a table. “How do I sign out a book?” she asked timidly.

“Have you got a membership?” said the volunteer.

“Er, no,” said Rae. “Is it expensive?”

“It’s ten pounds for the year, or free if you volunteer for two hours a week.”

“You should volunteer, Rae,” Archie said as he came up behind her. “We’re signing up, aren’t we, Finn?”

“Oh, er, yeah, I s’pose,” said Finn, who looked like he hadn’t really been paying attention.

“Great!” the volunteer said. “I’ll get out the forms.”

***

Once Rae had finished filling out the form to become a volunteer and member, she signed out the book and put it into her bag so she could head home. Most of the other people from the GSA had left already, anyway.

“Rae, come get a coffee with us,” Archie said as he caught up with her outside the library.

“I, er, I don’t drink coffee,” she replied.

He chuckled. “Tea, then. Come on.”

“I don’t know,” she said, glancing at Finn behind him. She didn’t really want to be a third wheel on their date.

“You should come,” said Finn.

“You sure?”

“Of course,” he said with a smile. “Now that I know you’ve got good taste in books.”

***

Rae ordered a cup of tea and drank it as she sat with the boys at the café. She managed not to feel like too much of a third wheel, though they had some inside jokes she didn’t understand, but she laughed anyway.

“So,” she said when she was starting to relax around them, “how long have you two been together, then?”

They exchanged glances with each other and started laughing.

“We’re not _together_ , Rae,” said Archie.

“Yeah, we’re just best mates,” said Finn.

“Oh my god, I’m sorry!” Rae said quickly. “It’s—It’s not that I think all gay people must be _together_ , I just, I thought—”

“We did try dating when we were, what, fourteen?” Finn continued, and looked to Archie for confirmation. “But it didn’t last long. We’re better as friends.”

“It was pretty much a case of, ‘we both like kissing boys, so why not kiss each other,’” said Archie before taking a sip of his coffee. “Which was not the best reason to do that, but we were young and stupid. And like he said, it didn’t last long.”

“Yeah, until today it was your shortest relationship, right, Arch?”

“What about Tim Wallace?”

“That wasn’t a relationship, that was snogging at a party one time.”

“It counts.”

“Rae,” Finn said, turning his attention back to her, “do you think snogging at a party one time counts as a relationship?”

“I don’t know,” she replied. “If linking arms in the corridors counts, then I’d say so.”

Archie looked at Finn smugly.

“Fine, then,” said Finn. “You are the king of the infinitesimal relationship.”

“Thank you,” said Archie.

Rae couldn’t help but laugh at their exchange. It was easy to tell that they knew each other really well and were just comfortable being themselves around each other. It made her wish she had someone like that, IRL.

At least she was talking to people now. At least that was something. Maybe she was even making friends.

***

Before leaving the café, Archie asked Rae for her social media handles so he could add her, though she told him she really only used Tumblr.

“Really?” said Finn, looking up from his phone for the first time in the past two minutes. “I’m on Tumblr right now; I’ll follow you. What’s your username?”

“You don’t need to do that,” she said.

“Come on,” he said. “I can guarantee that my blog is more embarrassing than yours.”

“It’s trash, really,” Archie added.

“Fine, it’s raes-haven,” she said. “With a dash in the middle, otherwise it looks like Rae Shaven and people will think it’s a porn blog.”

Finn laughed and started typing into his phone for a second before saying, “Aha, found you.” He looked back at her and added, “If you see goestoeleven following you, that’s me.”

“Good, I’ll know who to block, then,” she teased.

He made a pretend hurt face and she laughed again.

“I’ll see you guys later.”

***

It was getting late by the time Rae got home, and her mother started asking questions about her whereabouts.

“I was just out with some friends,” Rae said.

“I’d like it if you told me in advance when you were going to late,” said her mother.

Rae rolled her eyes and headed towards the stairs up to her room. “Fine, whatever,” she said. “Call me when it’s time to eat.”

She ignored her mother’s nagging and went to her room, closing the door behind her. She dropped her bag on the floor by her desk and picked up her laptop before bringing it with her into her bed, where she sat up against the headboard and propped up the laptop on her knees.

The first thing she checked, as always, was Tumblr. She saw that Finn had started following her and thought it would be rude not to follow back, so she did it without even taking a look at his blog.

He’d already liked a bunch of her recent posts, so she finally went to look at his and liked a few of them as well. They were mostly funny reblogs, with a few personal text posts scattered between them.

By the time she returned to her dashboard, she had a private message waiting for her. It was rare for her to get messages, so she was a bit hesitant about checking it.

It was from Finn.

_“Hi! I just thought you should know that I have a huge crush on you,”_ the message read.

She wasn’t really sure how to react to that. He had to have been joking, just like Archie had joked about being in love with her earlier.

_“Haha, is this because I have good taste in books?”_ she answered, figuring she would just play along. Even though she knew it was a joke, she still felt nervous about it.

It wasn’t long before she got a response. “ _No, it’s because you’re hot. ;)”_

_“Lol_ ,” she replied. Her hands were shaking. No one had ever told her that before.

_“I’m serious,”_ read his reply. _“You’re super hot and I have a huge crush on you. Have a good night, Rae.”_

***

Rae kept staring at the last message from Finn for the next few days. He’d liked pretty much everything she posted to her blog all weekend long—it seemed as though he was just always online.

She, however, refrained from interacting with any of his posts, as she was still feeling weird about what he had told her. He couldn’t have meant it, could he? For one thing, he was gay, right? And even if he wasn’t, she was still, well, her. No boy was ever going to like _that_. No, he was probably teasing her, maybe ever trying to humiliate her.

She scrolled past a really long photoset and stopped at a brief text post. It was by Finn, but she’d already read it before she saw that it was his.

_“I’m so sick of girls, tbh,”_ said the post. _“Except Rae, she’s sexy.”_

She couldn’t really understand what she was looking at. Was he just trying to humiliate her publicly now?

_“You can stop,”_ she wrote to him in a private message.

_“Stop what?”_ he replied shortly.

_“Stop making fun of me.”_

_“How am I making fun of you?”_

_“By saying that you’re into me and stuff.”_

_“But I am into you.”_

_“How is that even possible? You’re gay.”_

_“Who said I was gay?”_

_“You did.”_

_“No, you inferred it. I just said that I’d dated Archie.”_

_“What are you saying?”_

_“I’m saying you’re not the only bisexual in the village, Rae.”_

Well, didn’t she feel like a piece of shit, now, making assumptions about him like that? But it still didn’t explain why he was acting like he liked her.

_“Look, Rae, it’s fine if you aren’t interested, but I just like being honest with people,”_ he added.

_“Are you actually serious about liking me, then?”_

_“There’s a good chance I am, yeah.”_

_“But aren’t you afraid?”_ she asked.

_“Of what?”_

_“What people will think if they know you like me.”_

_“Why? What will they think?”_

_“Well, that you’re a chubby-chaser, for starters.”_

_“I don’t care what people think,”_ he answered. _“I’ve liked you since the moment I saw you, and I’m not sorry about it.”_

_“So what am I supposed to do with this information?”_

_“What do you want to do?”_

_“Part of me wants to ignore you and hope this all goes away,”_ she replied. _“And part of me wants to jump your bones. Heh.”_

_“I’d vote for the latter.”_

_“But seriously, this is a lot for me to take in.”_

_“How so?”_

_“No one’s ever liked me before.”_

_“I find that hard to believe,”_ he wrote. _“But the fact is that I do, so all that matters is if you like me too.”_

She hadn’t really given it much thought yet. Believing his confession to be a joke—and him to be gay—she hadn’t let her mind go down that path.

He was good-looking, she’d give him that. And she did enjoy talking to him at the café. Plus, him saying he was attracted to her was something of a turn-on, admittedly.

_“I’m not sure,”_ she finally replied. _“I hardly know you.”_

_“Well, maybe you can get to know me better at the library.”_

_“What do you mean?”_

_“I told them that I wanted to do my volunteer shifts with you. :)”_

***

Finn was there at Rae’s first volunteer shift at the library, Wednesday after school. It was a training shift, so an experienced volunteer was also there teaching them everything they needed to know. How to register a new member, how to sign out a book or DVD, that sort of thing.

“Most of the time you’ll just be sitting around,” said the person training them. “Work on homework, read a book, play charades; do whatever you want.”

Finn looked at Rae and raised his eyebrows in a way that suggested he thought they could just make out behind the stacks on their shift, so she looked away quickly, blushing.

They had another person with them for the next week of volunteering at the library, but by their third week, they were on their own. It was finally a chance for the two of them to talk, in person, alone.

Rae was fucking terrified.

The thing was, she had sort of gotten to know Finn over the last couple of weeks. She got to know him by talking online, but also by seeing how he interacted with others. She saw how he treated the other volunteers, how he treated the people using the library, and it was, in all honesty, hard not to fall for him. He was kind and thoughtful, but he was also funny and clever.

He was, she thought, the complete package, if there existed such a thing. But she had one problem. If he was so great… then why on Earth did he fancy her?

At least if he had turned out to be some sort of creepy loser who couldn’t get a date with anyone else and figured that the fat girl wouldn’t say no, she could understand that. But he was, like, an actual nice guy—not a Nice Guy™.

“How’d you like that book I recommended?” he asked as he sat across from her at the large table in the middle of the library.

“I had already picked it out,” she replied.

“Yeah, but I gave it my seal of approval.” He smiled at her and she chuckled.

“It was good,” she said. “Not my favourite by that author, but still good.”

“Well, that’s good, then,” he said. They fell silent for a few moments before he added, “So, have you decided?”

“Decided what?”

“If you like me, too.”

She looked away shyly. She couldn’t believe how forward he was, sometimes. Like he wasn’t scared of rejection. Like rejection could just roll off his back.

Rae was scared, though. She was scared of being rejected, even though he’d already told her he liked her. What if he only liked her because he didn’t really know her?

“I… I suppose,” she finally said, her head still lowered. “Reluctantly.”

“Reluctantly?” he asked. When she looked back up at him, he appeared amused by this.

“I was sort of hoping you’d be a jerk and I wouldn’t even have to consider it.”

“But you’re considering it.”

“Well…”

“So what can I do to convince you?”

“I don’t know, exactly. The problem’s with me,” she said.

He gave her a look of concern. “How is there a problem with you?”

“It’s just, it’s my insecurities, right?”

“Really? Because I think you’re one of the most confident, badass people I know.”

“What?” she said incredulously.

“You’re always going around like nothing bothers you,” he said.

“Have you considered that I might just be pretending that nothing bothers me, when really it does?”

“So? Pretending to be confident is half the battle to becoming confident.”

“That’s easy for you to say.”

“Why’s that?”

“You’re already super confident,” she said.

“Have you considered that I might just be pretending, too?”

“Why have you got to pretend?”

“Because I’m a person, Rae. I’ve got insecurities, too,” he said. “I just try not to let them stop me from living.”

She couldn’t imagine what he’d have to be insecure about, but it made her feel a little better. “I suppose you’ve got a point,” she said.

“So, if we both put our insecurities aside for a moment,” he added, “will you go out with me?”

Rae could hardly believe what she was about to say. “Sure,” she said. “But only because you’ve got good taste in books.”


End file.
